With so many books being published, it can feel daunting to choose what to read next. So we asked the Porter Square Books booksellers: What release are you most excited about? We’ve included lightly edited blurbs from the publishers to explain each title.
“Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel” by Yoko Tawada
“National Book Award winner Yoko Tawada intended to write an academic essay on the poet Paul Celan, but instead came out with this scattershot, inspired novel. In it, a failed academic also tries to write an essay about Celan but is plagued by several unnamed psychiatric illnesses. Tawada explores links between spirit and soma, between Celan, acupuncture, OCD, opera and psychosis. Especially recommended for fans of Thomas Bernhard.” – Rachael
In the spirit of imaginative homage, like Roberto Bolaño’s “Monsieur Pain” and Antonio Tabucchi’s “Requiem,” Yoko Tawada’s latest novel unfolds like a lucid dream about friendship, conversation, reading, poetry and music. Patrik is a literary researcher living in present-day Berlin. As the city reawakens from pandemic lockdown, Patrik cannot leave the house and rarely even gets out of bed; he is supposed to give a paper at a conference on Paul Celan’s poetry collection “Threadsuns,” but he cannot get past the first question on the registration form: “What is your nationality?” Then Patrik meets a stranger who somehow already knows him … (Release date July 9)
“The Drowning House” by Cherie Priest
“Cherie Priest has reworked and revamped the ghost novel, bringing it to new heights of horror. An old house washes up on the shore of a Pacific Northwest beach, and the resulting death and disappearance bring two childhood friends together to find the man at the heart of it all. Thrilling and dark, this one will keep you up long past the last page.” – Jen
On an isolated beach in the Pacific Northwest, a violent storm washes a house onto an isolated beach in the Pacific Northwest and kills the only woman who knows what it means. When her grandson, Simon Culpepper, goes missing, two of his childhood friends are forced to comb the small island for answers, though decades have passed since Melissa and Leo were close, if they were ever close at all. But they’ll have to put aside old grudges if they want to find the man who brought them together, and along the way they’ll learn about the mysterious house, the man who built it and the evil he’s bringing back to Marrowstone Island. (Release date July 23)
“Our Wicked Histories” by Amy Goldsmith
“This is a YA horror book set in an ancestral Irish estate where a weekend getaway turns sinister. I anticipate many intense moments, petty teen drama and spirits!” – Kaliisha
When Meg is asked to spend Halloween weekend at her former friends’ Ireland retreat, she recognizes the invitation as her only chance to save her spot at Greyscott’s, the exclusive British art school she attended on scholarship until last summer. Lottie Wren was Meg’s closest friend once, though none of Meg’s old friend group have talked to her since she left school, especially not about the incident that resulted in her suspension. When Meg gets to Wren Hall, it turns out to be far from the idyllic country manor she expected. As the past bleeds into the present and ancient sins rise to the surface, Meg must ask herself how well she really knows her one-time best friends … or whether any of them will survive the weekend. (Release date July 30)
“The Pairing” by Casey McQuiston
“’The Pairing’ is the second-chance romance I’ve been dreaming of. In turns funny and heartbreaking and very hot, Theo and Kit are the Couple of All Time. McQuiston also turns the point-of-view change into a masterpiece. Theo starts us off with their scathing wit and Kit, overdramatic even for a romance protagonist (I say with all the love in my overdramatic heart), is the perfect POV to finish us off.” – Connor
Theo and Kit were childhood best friends who turned into crushes before falling in love and ultimately becoming estranged exes. After a brutal breakup on the flight to their dream European food-and-wine tour, they left everything behind – except two vouchers for the European tour that never happened, good for 48 months. Kit never returned to America and now bakes at one of the finest restaurants in Paris; Theo has found confidence as a hustling bartender by night and aspiring sommelier by day. They haven’t seen each other since the breakup until they board a tour bus and discover they’ve accidentally had the same idea and are now forced to spend three weeks in the most romantic cities in France, Spain and Italy. They challenge each other to a hookup competition to prove they’re over each other, until they find out … they’re definitely not. (Release date Aug. 6, with a midnight release party at Porter Square Books’ store in Boston’s Seaport)
“The Seventh Veil of Salome” by Silvia Morena-Garcia
This is perhaps the best Moreno-Garcia since “Mexican Gothic.”’ Reminiscent of books like “Daisy Jones and the Six” and “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,” Moreno-Garcia spins together the whispers of the Golden Age of Hollywood into a tale of fame, intrigue and heartbreak that will keep readers spellbound to the last page.” – Katherine
In 1950s Hollywood, every actress wants to play Salome, the star-making role in a big-budget movie about the New Testament heroine. When the role goes to Vera Larios, an unknown Mexican ingenue, she becomes the talk of the town – and the object of envy for Nancy Hartley, a bit player whose career has stalled and who will do anything to get her fame back. This is a story of two actors but also the story of the Biblical princess, consumed with desire for the prophet who foretells the doom of her stepfather, a woman torn between duty and yearning. (Release date Aug. 6)
“Opacities: On Writing and the Writing Life” by Sofia Samatar
“Breathtaking wisdom on almost every page. Samatar’s collaborative consideration of the impossibility of writing unfurls beyond the challenges of putting words on a page, to elucidate and en-language the many impossibilities of being alive.” – Josh
A book about writing, publishing and friendship, “Opacities” is rooted in an epistolary relationship between Sofia Samatar and a friend and fellow writer. In a series of compressed, dynamic prose pieces, Samatar blends letters from her friend with notes on literature, turning to such writers as Édouard Glissant, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Clarice Lispector, Maurice Blanchot and Rainer Maria Rilke. In an attempt to rediscover the intimacy of writing, Samatar addresses a number of questions about the writing life: Why does publishing feel like the opposite of writing? How can a Black woman navigate interviews and writing conferences without being reduced to a symbol? Are writers found in their biographies or in their texts? And above all, how can the next book be written? (Release Date Aug. 12)
“Lady MacBeth” by Ava Reid
“I waited for (probably) a little over a year to read this book and I can officially confirm that Ava Reid always delivers. This novel is everything I wanted from it and so much more. It took my breath away from the very first page to the very last. It’s every Shakespeare nerd’s best fantasy. Ava Reid is queen, hereafter.” – Engel
A reimagining of Shakespeare’s most famous villainess, “Lady MacBeth” gives the iconic character a voice, a past and a power that transforms the story men have written about her. She knows her eyes induce madness in men; she knows she will be wed to the Scottish brute; she knows his suspicious court will be a game of strategy, requiring her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive. But what she doesn’t know is that her husband has occult secrets of his own, and that her magic is so dangerous that it will threaten the order of the world. But she will find out. (Release date Aug. 13)
“Mysterious Ways” by Wendy Wunder
“The latest from PSB bookseller Wendy Wunder, ‘Mysterious Ways’ is a sharp and hilarious coming-of-age novel for fans of John Green and Nicola Yoon about an omniscient teenage girl who must grapple with whether there’s such a thing as knowing too much.” – Stacey
Every time 17-year-old Maya looks at someone, she sees everything: She instantly knows their history, their private thoughts, their secret desires, their tragic failures. When her power starts to get her down, she ends up in Whispering Pines Psychiatric Facility and then at a new school. That’s where she meets Tyler, a cute guy she actually does want to know everything about. Can she use her power for good? Or is there such a thing as knowing too much? (Release date Aug. 27, and she will speak at Porter Square Books that evening).
This post was updated Aug. 19, 2024, to note that descriptions of the books were compiled from the publishers.
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